Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

30 papers left

If the plan to finish the PhD by the end of August holds — along with the pattern of never getting a summer TA position — this batch of second year political science papers will be the last undergraduate essay grading I ever do.

That would be most welcome. While there is a nurturing sort of grader who focuses on finding something to approve of in each submission, my approach is to hold firm sets of criteria in mind for each range of grades and then work to fairly assign each paper to the right one based on the ways in which it is insufficient according to the criteria for a higher one.

Actually teaching people how to improve their writing would require a lot more one-on-one interaction than U of T provides. When students want to meet about their papers I set aside an hour for each one, which rapidly becomes unpaid since I am not assigned anywhere near that many hours for student contact. Still, it is worthwhile because it shows how students at every level of skill can benefit from detailed engagement with exactly what is expected in a university paper: whether that is finding a few scattered pieces of an argument that could have been presented in a convincing and well-supported way, or adding more nuance and consideration of counterarguments to a paper than is already very strong.

Understanding al Qaeda

I’m now halfway through Ali Soufan’s Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State. Like his earlier Black Banners it’s both informative and accessible, going into considerable detail on the motivations and internal deliberations and conflicts of jihadi terror groups. While Black Banners was much more about Soufan’s personal story, Anatomy of Terror is structured around the lives of a succession of important figures in the emergence of al Qaeda and the Islamic State, including Saif al-Adel and Abu Museb al-Zarqawi.

It’s important history to understand, especially from the perspective of analyzing western foreign and security policy over the last 15 years or more. I’ll post some especially interesting quotes one I get through with the book.

This sort of reading, which doesn’t relate directly to my teaching, coursework, or research, is a vital form of relaxation for me. It’s intellectually engaging and complex, but for me doesn’t produce much of an emotional response. I also find that I get through it very efficiently, in frustrating contrast to things which I really need to read but sometimes struggle to get through every paragraph and page of.

Rolling dice with neurons

One virtue of anxiety is sometimes you do come up with a new approach to solving a problem the 1000th time you think it over, even if you haven’t learned any pertinent information in the interim.

The new approach is probably bad, but at least the rate of new ideas never falls to zero and so there is a corresponding value, albeit with diminishing marginal returns, to rumination. When presented with complex, unforgiving, long-term problems, that may be indispensable.

The annex / U of T neighbourhood after seven years

When I lived at Massey College between September 2012 and spring 2015, I was grateful and often struck by the oddness of mostly surviving on U of T’s ungenerous funding while living a block from St George subway station, surrounded by million dollar condos.

I’m still grateful to be living near campus, letting me perform all life necessities on foot. At the same time, the memories that have been overlaid on this neighbourhood in the last few years have largely been those of stress, anxiety, and conflict. Friends who used to live nearby are now virtually all gone, and memories of people like my villainous ex-flatmate and the man who attacked me this summer across the street from my house have me always anxiously checking who is around.

I’m in one of the ‘beyond exhausted’ spans of the PhD, nicely matched with the cold and sore throat that have endured for about three weeks now. I very much hope there won’t be any new major upsets and it will simply be possible to do my data analysis, write my chapters, defend the dissertation, and find some new major project to move on to.

Ottawa bound

I’m pretty much focused now on spinning up preparations to go to Power Shift next week. That means preparing for my Wednesday morning tutorials on Quebec and Language Politics, and my Wednesday contentious politics seminar on framing and identity. I also have office hours with students who want to discuss essay drafts on Monday.

This time I will be taking the train, unlike all my previous Ottawa–Toronto journeys. I can’t remember how many years it has been since I took an intercity train (maybe to a climate conference in Montreal, from Ottawa, sometime around 2009?), but friends tell me it’s a whole lot nicer than the Greyhound, and in this case it was basically the same cost.

I went to a drop-in clinic about my enduring cold today and was told it’s not strep and that I should discontinue any medication other than ibuprofen and acetaminophen and try to get as much rest as possible. I’ll be staying in a large shared dorm with no privacy, so it would be quite a pain to be acutely ill while in Ottawa.

This will also be a good trial of my replacement for my nearly shredded Barbour Beaufort jacket. I’ve been testing it in various conditions in Toronto, including what passes for extreme cold here, but anticipating a fair bit of time outside and night-time walks in Ottawa I’m planning to bring a second pair of merino wool long underwear for layering.

Presenting at Power Shift

I am preparing to present a preliminary version of my research results at the Power Shift conference in Ottawa, which takes place from February 14th to 18th.

It’s an unusual venue for presenting academic research. The website says that it will “convene hundreds of young people from across this land to build a powerful and intersectional youth climate justice movement”. This speaks to both unusual features, including an audience comprised of young activists who in the case of my workshop will likely be divestment veterans, and a commitment to be intersectional and emphasize “climate justice”.

In my interviews I have made a particular effort to elicit the views of subjects on questions about which alliances the climate change activist movement should make and why. It’s not a natural match with my research — or with an analytical approach generally — to endorse or criticize particular approaches to allyship. Rather, I am trying to explain descriptively what people believe and what seems to have led to the development and reinforcement of those beliefs. To some extent, I am also trying to comment on what effects those views may have in the future.

Trying to come at the problem in a relatively disinterested way may be unfamiliar to many of the participants. It’s certainly at odds with a lot of the program, which seems to understandably emphasize energizing and exciting people over asking them to think over the strategies they have been using. Nonetheless, I think we’ll have an interesting and respectful discussion. It’s pretty easy to explain at the outset the logic for not assuming our current approach is correct, and being willing to consider deficiencies or limitations it may have. Maintaining morale and a sense that people have done good work is important, but surely actually doing good work must take precedence when the fate of the planet is at stake. It can be very comforting and motivating to see the movement you’re in as already in possession of all the answers and just needing to spread the word to everyone to succeed. Thinking critically about the real barriers to implementing a decarbonization project globally may require more unfamiliar thoughts and company, but there’s a strong case that it’s necessary.

mucinex

I’m still sick to the point of having no difficulty in sleeping 20 hours a day. On medical advice I discontinued all the sough suppressants I was taking and began taking extended release guafenesin bi-layer tablets to encourage the removal of fluid from my lungs as opposed to its accumulation.

I’m re-listening to an audiobook of The Martian during my brief forays into the ice world for necessary supplies. Went out to try to make prints for a batch of thank you cards, and found that my USB key had been rendered inoperable. Despite several efforts on different systems to format it, it could just never quite recover from being used as a MacOS installer disk. I was able to collect French bread and some decently reddish mini-tomatoes, as the vine-attached variants on offer in January are all rather pink and firm.

My brother Sasha is playing a concert tonight, which I am sure will be fantastic. I’ve been croaking my way through dissertation interviews and tutorials. The new regime is just advil and the guafenesin, with lemon and honey-laden tea PRN.